Sage’s seizure drug fails key trial

Sage’s seizure drug fails key trial, shares slump

(Reuters) – Sage Therapeutics Inc’s shares tumbled 23 percent on Tuesday after its drug to treat a life-threatening seizure disorder failed to meet the main goal of a key trial, raising concerns about the future of the study.

“The SRSE study showed little signal and we’d be very surprised if Sage continued clinical development in this context,” Leerink Research analyst Paul Matteis wrote in a client note.

SRSE is the most severe form of status epilepticus, under which seizures last for a long time and often recur.

A patient with status epilepticus is initially treated with a class of psychoactive drugs called benzodiazepines. If one does not respond to them, the patient is given anti-seizure drugs.

If the seizure still persists, the patient is placed into a medically induced coma and is given anesthesia along with another line of anti-seizure drugs, under which efforts are made to wean the impact of those three treatments to determine if the seizure has been resolved or not.